Minecraft Essay

In this essay I will cover why and how Minecraft has been a commercial and critical success and include an outline of the game's history and notes from class and handouts. Minecraft is the second most successful video game of all time behind Tetris. Minecraft was created and developed by Swedish based Mojang Studios, having been bought by Microsoft from Mojang in 2014 for US $2.5 Billion (GB 1.9 Billion.) The game has been described as a virtual world of Lego. Explore, mine and build, are the simple instructions you have to follow leaving the majority of the game over to player’s imaginations. It is the biggest selling PC game of all time. To this date well over 121 million copies have been sold across all platforms, including over 27 million PC copies. An estimated 55 million people play the game every month. 

Minecraft’s initial reception wasn’t commercially viable, seen more as a niche product for players with expert knowledge of computers and programming. However, Minecraft has the commercial backing of a mainstream publisher therefor it has been able to be a global success. In November 2011 Minecraft had over 16 million registered users and 4 million purchases., Minecraft was released across multiple platforms becoming a commercially viable franchise with increased interactivity, due to its popularity. On its release, the game won five awards at three conferences, including an Innovation Award, Best Debut Game, Best Downloadable Game, Audience Award and Seumas McNally Grand Prize.

Minecraft is a Sandbox game meaning it is a game free of structure and constraint; players are free to roam and make choices about how they use available content. Sandbox games are often described as having open world settings. This makes it a success as the game is limited to people’s imaginations and encourages creativity amongst all ages. Minecraft later created a hybrid genre with the story versions and is sometimes categorised as sandbox, survival.

Minecraft is also a success due to the broad demographic it reaches. The game cleverly manages to target a genderless and ageless demographic appealing just as much to children as it does elders. much of Minecraft’s success was due to word of mouth and audiences sharing their own mods and game footage across web forums and video sharing sites such as YouTube. Different versions of Minecraft were released to entice different audiences, moving away from creation only narratives to include story modes, spectator modes and multi-player functionality across Minecraft Realms. Things such as a physical Lego set were introduced to encourage younger audiences as well as merchandise opportunities.

The game is a global and commercial success and also praised by several high profile critics and gaming institutions. The game has amassed such a following that MineCon conventions can be found all around the world and further support popularising the game. There are other conventions of the game that have proven popular, including the release of albums featuring the music of the game, produced by German sound designer Daniel “C418” Rosenfeld.